What are the Filing Requirements for the FBAR & 8938 IRS Forms

What are the Filing Requirements for the FBAR & 8938 IRS Forms

Golding & Golding – U.S. and International Tax Lawyers

When it comes to international tax, two of the most important forms to make sure you have filed correctly and timely each year are the FBAR (Report of foreign bank and financial accounts) and the 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets).

The failure to file either one of these forms timely or correctly may result in the tens of thousands of dollars worth of annual fines and penalties. Moreover, if it is determined that the taxpayer acted willfully than 100% value before accounts may be forfeited to the IRS.

FBAR

An FBAR is a “Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts” form. It is a form that is filed online directly with the Department of Treasury when a person, trust or business owner has more than an annual aggregate amount of $10,000 in foreign and overseas accounts.

When do I File an FBAR?

If you, your family, your business, your foreign trust, and/or PFIC (Passive Foreign Investment Company) have more than $10,000 (in annual aggregate total at any time) overseas in foreign accounts and either have ownership or signatory authority over the account, it is important that you have an understanding of what you must do to maintain FBAR (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) compliance. There are very strict FBAR filing guidelines and requirements in accordance with general IRS tax law, Department of Treasury (DOT) filing initiatives, and FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act).

What Accounts are Reported on an FBAR?

Filing FBARs and ensuring compliance with IRS International Tax Laws, Rules, and Regulations is extremely important for anyone, or any business that maintains:

Foreign Bank Accounts

Foreign Savings Accounts

Foreign Investment Accounts

Foreign Securities Accounts

Foreign Mutual Funds

Foreign Trusts

Foreign Retirement Plans

Foreign Business and/or Corporate Accounts

Insurance Policies (including some Life Insurance)

Foreign Accounts held in a CFC (Controlled Foreign Corporation); or

Foreign Accounts held in a PFIC (Passive Foreign Investment Company)

8938

What is IRS Form 8938

The IRS 8938 is filed when the taxpayer or taxpayers submit their tax return to the Internal Revenue Service. Not all taxpayers are required to file IRS form 8938. Rather, IRS form 8938 is reserved for individuals who maintain accounts overseas and meet the threshold requirements for filing the form.

*Even if you reside overseas, if you are a U.S. Citizen, Legal Permanent Resident, or even sometimes a former Legal Permanent Resident you are still required to file an 8938 but the Threshold Requirements are higher.

Single Taxpayers or Married Filing Separate (MFS)

If a taxpayer is single or files married filing separate then they will have to file IRS form 8938 if they have more than $50,000 in aggregate total in the overseas accounts on the last day of the year. Alternatively, if they have less than $50,000 on the last day of the year but at any time during the year they had $75,000 or more in overseas accounts, then they are also required to file IRS form 8938.

Married Filing Jointly Taxpayers (MFJ)

When taxpayers file married filing jointly, the threshold requirements are doubled. In other words, when a couple files the US tax return as married filing jointly, they will only have to file IRS form 8938 when you have a combined annual aggregate total of $100,000 on the last day of the year or if it anytime during the year they had $150,000 or more in overseas accounts.

If a person does not meet these threshold requirements then generally they will not have to file IRS form 8938.

*Taxpayers should be sure they understand that even if they are not required to file IRS form 8938, they may still be required to file an FBAR with the Department of the Treasury, since the threshold requirements for overseas accounts and FBARs are significantly less ($10,000).

**Unlike the FBAR, a person only has to file an IRS form 8938 when the money is theirs; with an FBAR, a person has to file the FBAR even if the money is not theirs, but they have signatory authority over the accounts.

*** If you reside overseas, the threshold requirements are higher.

Out of Compliance – Offshore Disclosure

If you are currently out of compliance, have not filed the necessary forms and want to get compliant before you are audited or examined by the IRS the two primary methods for compliance is entering either OVDP ( offshore voluntary disclosure program) or the IRS Streamlined Program.

Golding & Golding provides the following summary on the differences between the two programs below for your reference:

OVDP vs. Streamlined

In order to assist you better understand the distinction between the two different IRS foreign account disclosure programs, we are providing the following summary for your reference:

If you or your business has unreported or undisclosed foreign accounts, offshore assets, or foreign income then you may be considering whether you should enter the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) or the IRS Streamlined Offshore Disclosure Program, and what the definition of “Willful” is.

Whether or not you enter Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) or the IRS Streamlined Offshore Disclosure Program will depend on the facts and circumstances of each taxpayer’s situation. Not two tax situations are identical, and the failure to properly submit to the correct program can have serious consequences for the unsuspecting taxpayer.

Why Comply with IRS Foreign Disclosure Laws?

Because if you fail to comply with FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) as well as general IRS Foreign Disclosure Laws, the IRS has the authority to penalize you upwards of 100% of the value of your offshore assets and accounts as well as:

Collect Taxes for prior tax years

Collect Interest on outstanding tax liability for prior years

Penalize you for the failure to report foreign accounts on the tax return (Schedule B and 8938)

Penalize you for the failure to report foreign gifts (3520)

Penalize you for the failure to report foreign Trusts (3520 and 3520A)

Penalize you for the failure to report ownership in Foreign Corporations (5471 and 5472)

The reason why international tax law compliance has taken center stage is because under the new FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) laws, foreign countries are actively reporting the bank and financial accounts of US citizens and US legal permanent residents. If a foreign country is interested in working with the United States, the foreign country will enter into an “ Intergovernmental Agreement” (IGA) with the United States. These agreements are reciprocity agreements, which means that not only will the foreign country report the information to the IRS, but the IRS will also reciprocate by providing the same information to foreign country tax authorities.

Why Enter either OVDP or the Modified Streamlined Program?

There are the only two approved programs by the Internal Revenue Service that can bring a taxpayer into compliance. Instead of entering the programs, a taxpayer may qualify to directly report under the reasonable cause exception, in which the taxpayer directly submits the forms with a statement explaining why they were not properly filed instead of paying a penalty.

*The IRS is not known to be sympathetic, and if the IRS does not believe you and audits you and/or you are under examination, you are disqualified from entering either the OVDP or Streamlined Program AND the IRS is now informed regarding all of your undisclosed accounts.

**If the taxpayer submits the forms to the IRS without submitting to the IRS Disclosure Programs, it can be considered “silent disclosure” or “quiet disclosure.” If the IRS learns of the Quiet or Silent Disclosure, he IRS will penalize you heavily as well as consider initiating criminal proceedings against you. In this scenario, not only will the IRS seek to take all of your money and assets through the implementation of penalties and levies, but you may be spending the next 2 to 20 years in prison for tax evasion or tax fraud.

What is the Difference between OVDP and the Streamlined Program?

Before making a decision regarding voluntary disclosure, it is important to understand the difference between the two main programs.

OVDP (Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program Requirements)

In accordance with OVDP filing requirements, The Applicant will then be required to pay the outstanding tax, along with estimated interest, a 20% penalty on the outstanding tax, as well as an “FBAR” Penalty. The Penalty is 27.5% (or 50% if any of the foreign accounts are held at an IRS “Bad Bank”) on the highest year’s “annual aggregate total” of unreported accounts (Accounts which were previously reported are not calculated into the penalty amount).

For OVDP, the annual aggregate total is determined by adding the “maximum value” of each unreported account for each year, in each of the last 8 years. To determine what the maximum value is, the taxpayer will add up the highest balances of all their accounts for each year. In other words, for each tax year within the compliance period, the application will locate the highest balance for each account for each year, and total up the values to determine the maximum value for each year.

Thereafter, the OVDP applicant selects the highest year’s value, and multiplies it by either 27.5%, or possibly 50% if any of the money was being held in what the IRS considers to be one of the “bad banks.” When a person is completing the penalty portion of the application, the two most important things are to breathe, and remember that by entering the program the applicant is seeking to avoid CRIMINAL PROSECUTION!

When it comes to the Streamlined Program, the penalty is limited to 5% on the highest “year-end” balance for the last 6-years. The reason is that if the person was non-willful, they should not be overly-penalized if there was an artificial increase in the value of the bank accounts – such as from the sale of a home during the tax year.

(A complete breakdown of OVDP requirements can be found on our OVDP Page, by Clicking Here)

OVDP is Unfair for Non-Willful Taxpayers

Before the implementation of the modified streamlined program, it was difficult for individuals who were non-willful (no specific definition, but generally without intent to deceive or defraud) to become compliant. Why? Because if you are non-willful, you still had to go through the filing procedures as if you were willful, and then opt out of the penalty structure and open yourself up for audit.

Not such a big deal, except for the fact that you also had to pay 20% penalty on the outstanding taxes that you owed along with a 27.5% penalty on the highest year’s annual aggregate (unless you successfully “opted out” from the penalty structure – which came with a whole other set of headaches). As you can imagine, for individuals who simply inherited some money overseas, had no international dealings, and had no idea that they were required to report foreign passive income (Interest income) in a country that does not tax its own citizens on passive income earnings — providing this information to the IRS was a huge burden.

What is the Modified Streamlined Program?

In order to avoid “non-willful” applicants from having to go through the entire OVDP process before opting out, the IRS and Department of the Treasury modified a small program in existence, called the streamlined program, which was very limited. The IRS expanded the program to basically allow anyone who was non-willful to enter the program.

The program reduced the amount of documentation that applicants were required to file to only three years of amended tax returns and six years of FBAR (Foreign Account Reporting Statements). In addition, there was no penalty on the tax amount that was due and no penalty on the value of income generating foreign real estate that was not previously disclosed. Moreover, the 27.5% penalty was reduced down to 5%, or completely waived if the foreign residence requirements were met.

Penalty Waiver: there is a small facet of the modified streamlined program called the Modified Foreign Offshore Program. If a person qualifies for the modified stream of program (which means they acted non willfully) and they can prove they lived overseas for a total of 330 days out of the tax year in any year within the last three years, then they may qualify to have the penalty waived.

The Streamlined Programs sounds great, right? Well it is, unless you are attempting to wrongfully evade the 27.5% penalty by entering the program when you knew you were willful.

What if you are caught trying to sneak into the Streamlined Program?

I cannot stress to you enough to not try and enter the Streamlined Program if you were willful. If you knowingly enter the streamlined program and it is found that you acted willfully in your failure to disclose and report your overseas and foreign assets and income you will most likely be prosecuted by the IRS.

The IRS made this fact known in a recent public relations statement. From the IRS’ perspective, if you wrongfully enter this program in order to avoid paying the full penalty amount what you have done is stolen 27.5% or 50% of the penalty amount due to the IRS – and this does not make the IRS very happy.

Even worse is that you may be subject to criminal prosecution. And, since you have already disclosed all the foreign financial information in your Streamlined Program application, you will be in a tough position to try and defend yourself.

Why is the Modified Streamlined program in Jeopardy?

Just like in everything in life, a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. The IRS has learned that several individuals who were willful in their failure to report undisclosed foreign tax and bank information have been caught trying to sneak into the modified streamlined program in order to pay a reduced penalty – or avoid the penalty altogether This contradicts the IRS’ intention which was to modify and expand the Streamlined Offshore Disclosure Program to assist taxpayers who otherwise would be overburdened by having to enter the OVDP and opt out of the penalty structure.

There is No Reason to be Scared of the OVDP or the Streamlined Programs

The goal of this article is not to scare you. Rather, it is to warn you to just be cautious if you are entering into these programs. Way too many inexperienced and unscrupulous attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents see these programs as a way to scare individuals.

If You are going to enter a Foreign Disclosure Program, use an Attorney

While CPAs and enrolled agents (who are not also attorneys) may charge less than an attorney is important to note that you do not have an attorney client privilege with CPAs and enrolled agents. What that means, is that if it turns out you wrongfully entered the streamlined program and the IRS wants to speak with your representative, unless your representative is an attorney, there is no privilege between a CPA and Taxpayer when a Criminal Matter is at issue.